Researchers should distribute information widely and free of cost: so say proponents of the concept of open access. One prong of open access is the open data movement, which seeks to democratize access to the vast amount of data produced on a daily basis. While the open data movement certainly applies to data developed in a multitude of settings, government-developed data is one of the most prolific areas of concern and one which is easy to rally behind. Simply stated: data developed on the public dollar should be accessible to the citizens who fund it.
Governmental bodies – municipalities, state agencies, federal agencies, etc. – regularly produce data drawn from and reflecting large populations. That data is (or can be) of profound utility to researchers.
While advocates of open data have been working with the federal government for decades to gain meaningful access to government data, it is only in recent years that significant progress has been made. In 2019 Congress passed the Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act – perhaps the most important legislation to date that advances the open data agenda. The Open Government Data Act requires that specified federal agencies publish data assets as machine-readable data, develop and maintain a data inventory, and appoint a Chief Data Officer.
So what progress has been made toward that end? The performance of each relevant agency is tracked on the Project Open Data Dashboard, but overall good progress is being made toward open access to machine-readable public datasets. Those datasets are housed at Data.gov, a publicly developed open-source repository managed by the United States General Services Administration.
While the theory behind open government data touts improved government transparency and civic participation, the practical realities of its effects remain unclear. Some posit that because the legislation and tools are still in their infancy, accessibility is not enough; rather, training and context-specific interventions are needed to bolster the use of public datasets.
While the federal government may be slow to perfect the tools and training to most effectively encourage the use of public datasets, the legislative requirements set forth in the Open Government Data Act are a huge step forward in the democratization of data – an accomplishment to celebrate during this year’s Love Data Week!
Check out this helpful Open Data and Open Science Library guide to learn more.
